Tasty

A fascinating and deeply researched investigation into the mysteries of flavor—from the first bite taken by our ancestors to scientific advances in taste and the current "foodie" revolution.

Taste has long been considered the most basic of the five senses because its principal mission is a simple one: to discern food from everything else. Yet it's really the most complex and subtle. Taste is a whole-body experience, and breakthroughs in genetics and microbiology are casting light not just on the experience of french fries and foie gras, but the mysterious interplay of body and brain.

With reporting from kitchens, supermarkets, farms, restaurants, huge food corporations, and science labs, Tasty tells the story of the still-emerging concept of flavor and how our sense of taste will evolve in the coming decades. Tasty explains the scientific research taking place on multiple fronts: how genes shape our tastes; how hidden taste perceptions weave their way into every organ and system in the body; how the mind assembles flavors from the five senses and signals from body's metabolic systems; the quest to understand why sweetness tastes good and its dangerous addictive properties; why something disgusts one person and delights another; and what today's obsessions with extreme tastes tell us about the brain.

Brilliantly synthesizing science, ancient myth, philosophy, and literature, Tasty offers a delicious smorgasbord of where taste originated and where it's going—and why it changes by the day.

John McQuaid has written about city-destroying super-termites, the slow collapse of fishing communities, hurricane levee engineering, mountaintop removal coal mining, and the global flower business for various publications, including Smithsonian magazine, The Washington Post, Wired, Forbes.com and EatingWell magazine. His work has won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, son and daughter. The struggle to satisfy and understand the kids' strange and contradictory food choices (the elder liked super-hot peppers and limes, the younger rice, pasta and cheese) was the inspiration for his book Tasty.